Fraud investigation targets recruiting program for Army National Guard, Reserve
By Robert O’Harrow Jr., Published: March 13
A recruitment campaign to boost the Army National Guard and Reserve at a difficult time in Iraq and Afghanistan is the focus of a wide-ranging Pentagon fraud investigation, including allegations of kickback schemes involving military personnel, internal documents show.
The alleged fraud involves programs that paid $2,000 bounties to soldiers or civilians who signed up as “recruiting assistants” and brought in new enlistees. Investigators have found evidence that recruiters for the Guard and Reserve who were not eligible for the bounties worked with some recruiting assistants to secretly secure and split up the money.
More than 1,700 recruiters and hundreds of recruiting assistants are under scrutiny for $92 million in potentially fraudulent transactions — more than a quarter of all the bounty money paid, according to an internal Army Audit Agency document. Investigators have found that dozens of the recruiters apparently shared bank accounts with individuals who received bounties.
Faced with a report on the abuses, Army Secretary John McHugh canceled the programs and ordered a probe of “systemic weaknesses and shortfalls, some of a potentially criminal nature,” according to an internal memo signed by McHugh on Feb. 9.
In response to questions from The Washington Post, an Army spokesman said the investigation is ongoing.
Much more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fraud-investigation-targets-recruiting-program-for-army-national-guard-reserves/2012/03/12/gIQAp1QXAS_story.html?hpid=z2
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